As federal government shutdown draws closer, the director of a home hospital program says his team is working to make sure chronically ill patients are re-admitted to the hospital. The program stopped admitting patients three days ago and has slowly drawn down their census to six patients on Tuesday, some of whom will return to the hospital.

"In the absence of any congressional action, we have had to wind down our census," said Dr. Constantinos Michaelidis, medical director of Hospital at Home at UMass Memorial Health in Worcester.

The UMass Memorial at Home program allows patients to receive hospital level care from the comfort of their own space. A Medicare provision which enables the program is set to expire at midnight Tuesday, at the same time as a government shutdown. With that, Michaelidis said, the program will end.

"Physicians and medics are incredibly disappointed," he said.

The news comes as a blow to Kim Dumais-Hutt who used Hospital at Home twice, before and after receiving a liver transplant.

"Being able to recover and get the care that I need in my own home is the reason I'm still here," Dumais-Hutt said.

Impacts of shutdown in Massachusetts  

The impacts of a potential government shutdown will also be felt elsewhere in Massachusetts.

National parks, such as the Boston African American National Historic Site, the Boston National Historic Park, and Boston Harbor Islands, would shutter immediately. 

According to the most recent Congressional Research Service Report, there are 25,698 civilian federal workers in Massachusetts. They could go unpaid along with 14,798 active-duty military and reserve personnel in the state.

For Dumais-Hutt, the shutdown is not a matter of money but of life and death. She does not want to worry about future hospital admissions for herself or others.

"If I was one of those people, I don't think I would bounce back," she said.